Free It's Superman! A Novel by Tom De Haven Page B

pa—just like you wrote.”
    “Mom told me ’88.”
    “Trust me, Clark, it was 1887.”
    Silence again, for several miles.
    “How come you didn’t let me have a look at it before you sent that in?”
    “I guess I forgot. I’m sorry, Dad.”
    They’re in town now, coming up Union Street, half a block from the church, the cemetery with its small obelisks and listing headstones behind a black iron fence.
    “Clark?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “I was wondering why you put it in there that you’re our adopted son.”
    “Because I am.”
    “It never mattered.”
    “I know that.”
    “She loved you like you were her own flesh and blood.”
    Clark nods.
    “And you know I do too, don’t you?”
    Clark nods again.
    “It was a fine piece of writing, son. I sure couldn’t’ve done it.”
    2
    She cherished her family, and baked the world’s most delicious rhubarb pie. And her apple pie, too—the way she coated the crust with sugar, that you couldn’t beat. Simply could not. And she was always there in your time of trouble, with a kind word, a smile, a sincere offer of assistance. She was humble. She was gracious. She wrote the loveliest, the most thoughtful Christmas letters. She had moral fiber, real pioneer strength of character. And did everyone recall that wienie roast just before the war, the summer Mary Agel was afflicted by shingles, and Martha, always the friend in need, always the selfless one, stepped right up and volunteered to—
    Mr. Kent doesn’t think he can stand too much more. Martha was all that everyone said, but she was also his wife of thirty-one years, his best friend, his soul mate, his complement, and she is five feet away from him now, confined forever in the plain wooden coffin she requested, and his heart is broken. Rhubarb pies! That woman made the sun come up. And he wants this ordeal to end, to go home, to be home, back in the house where her spirit is still present, will always be present, in the iron stove, the knotty pine wardrobe, the spoons, the hand-woven draperies and pillow covers, the stair treads, the floorboards, their bed. In everything.
    He wants to go home with his son and grieve.
    To Mr. Kent’s right, Clark sits hunched forward with his head bowed and his eyes closed. His knees are spread apart, and he’s gripped the edge of the pew seat. Branching veins have risen on the backs of his hands.
    “. . . I can tell you, it wasn’t just poor Mary Agel who was grateful that day, it was . . .”
    Below the drone of this latest panegyric, Mr. Kent detects a slight fracturing sound. When he turns his head, his glance instinctively dropping, he sees, in the foot-wide gap between his son’s curled hands, a split opening, breaching in the varnished oak-wood edging of their pew.
    He touches Clark’s left elbow. Clark’s eyelids snap open. He flinches, jerks backward, and—
    CRACK!
    Aghast, Clark looks at the piece of broken wood in his hands, then blushes furiously as though discovering himself naked in public.
    Calmly Mr. Kent takes the wood chunk, leans down, and sets it on the floor under the pew.
    Behind them, Mr. Kent is well aware, the fifty or so congregants, town friends and neighboring farmers, are all still looking, still craning, still wondering what in God’s name . . . ?
    It’s time, he decides.
    Martha, stay close. I need you.
    3
    Clark looks around unhappily, back toward the church where two women—Mrs. Kackle and Mrs. Kemp—have come outside from what parishioners call the “confraternity room” and where, an hour now since the interment, a solemn repast is still in progress. Mrs. Kackle lifts an arm and beckons. “They want us to come in,” says Clark.
    “I know it,” says Mr. Kent. “But I don’t think they’ll raise a fuss if we don’t, do you?” He slips into a trance of concentration, staring at the mound of rich brown earth in front of him. Then he shifts his eyes to Clark. “Take a walk with me? I want to show you